Ben Bernanke tries to close the deal on that dream house you want

The Federal Reserve Board is serious about wanting you to buy a house — or maybe even two.

Show of hands, now, how many of you have heard people complain that they want to buy a house but those darned interest rates are just too high?

I thought so.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage right now is 3.6 percent. To put that in perspective, it was 6.1 percent back when real estate was going gangbusters in 2007, according to this story by Bloomberg Businessweek.

Combine that with house prices, which are much lower than in 2007, and we probably haven’t had such a good time to buy since your grandparents were looking for a nice place in the suburbs with a garage for their new ’57 Chevy.

All of which has me confused as to why the Fed, and its chairman Ben Bernanke, think they can move us to buy by pushing rates even lower.

Investors immediately began buying mortgage bonds, which is bound to lower the yield. Expect interest rates to fall again.

The overriding goal of all this is to try to get the economy back to full employment. Without a job, you can’t afford a house at any price. But it’s impossible for the Fed to inject itself into the economy this way without creating winners and losers.

Oil markets liked the idea. The price of a barrel rose after the news, but the futures market fell. (Remember how futures investors once were the scapegoat for high gas prices?) Investors apparently think unrest in the Middle East and a drop in demand heading into the fall will keep prices from rising..

The stock market loved it. The Dow closed up 206.5 points.

The dollar didn’t like it. It fell to a seven-month low against the yen and a four-month low against the Euro.

If you were king for a day, what kinds of changes would you like to see in the economy? I’m guessing one of the things on your list might be higher interest rates on savings and investments.

Where is the incentive to put money into a bank savings account? Interest rates are so low you might as well use your mattress. The same goes for other savings instruments average people might use, such as CDs.

The Fed wants you to borrow and buy, not to save. But the lesson of the Great Recession was for average people not to over-extend themselves.

Experts are calling the Fed’s move aggressive and dramatic. It also seems pretty much like the last weapon in its arsenal. If cheap real estate at 1 or 2 percent interest doesn’t get the economy going or, worse, if it causes inflation, what then?

About the Author

Jay Evensen

Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist for the Deseret News. He has 32 years of journalism experience covering politics and a variety of other assignments at news organizations ranging from United Press International in New York City to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Deseret News, where he has worked since 1986. During that time, he has won numerous local, regional and national awards. Most recently, he was given the Cameron Duncan Media Award, given annually in Washington, D.C., by the advocacy group RESULTS, to the journalist judged to have done the most to further the cause of the world's poorest people.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to promote a program to reduce the amount of student loan debt in the economy? It would immediately put money that was intended to make a loan payment back in circulation. I know that I would be buying a new car or making repairs on my house if my student loan debt was reduced or erased. I would not be looking for a second home or attempting to reduce my mortgage rate which is currently at 4%, and just getting it to that level was painful enough. The banks will not open up the floodgates to the general public, when they are making enough money servicing other forms of debt.

When unemployment numbers are down, there is not such a wide gap between rich and poor, jobs available ads fill the classifieds, when partisan politics are not the stumbling block for reasonable politics, then and only then will we see housing sales go up!!

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Welcome to my perspectives on the news

Jay Evensen is the Associate Editor of the Deseret News editorial page. He has 30 years of journalism experience covering politics and a variety of other assignments at news organizations ranging from United Press International in New York City to the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Deseret News.